Cosmetic Company Under Fire For Racist Product Names. What Do You Think?

ColourPop Cosmetics recently found themselves at the center of controversy due to the names of some of their contour sticks.  Last week, black beauty lovers began calling out the brand for giving the darker shades names with negative connotations.   Take a look at the product names below:

colourpop-racist-contour-sticks

colourpop-racist-contour-sticks

Source
Source

I asked the ladies in my facebook makeup group, Black Women Who Love Makeup, if they too felt offended by the shades, and most of the ladies had this to say:

screen-shot-2016-09-24-at-11-53-30-am screen-shot-2016-09-24-at-11-53-25-am screen-shot-2016-09-24-at-11-53-19-am screen-shot-2016-09-24-at-11-53-03-am screen-shot-2016-09-24-at-11-52-58-am colourpop-racist

One group member, however, did feel offended and emailed the company the following message:

colourpop-racistIn response Colourpop Cosmetics has renamed the shades in question and issued the following statement to Buzzfeed news:

In a statement to BuzzFeed News, a spokesperson said: “On behalf of ColourPop, we are sorry and are extremely grateful for our customers’ feedback. We have taken immediate action to change the shade names and review our naming process to ensure this does not happen again.”

One  beauty blogger Tiss, told Buzzfeed News that “until a brand strives to employ with racial equity in mind, they will continue to miss the mark where people of colour are concerned”.

My Thoughts

I purchased Typo a few months ago and never once did I equate myself with being a “typo.” In fact, I’ve never heard a human being called a “typo,” so I never made the connection. Easy Peasy, to me, is pretty cutsey, and Dume is a city in Portugal. I would venture to call myself pretty “woke,” especially in light of current evens, but this one? Nah. Nope. I am not offended by the naming of these shades in the least. In fact, if I were on the team in charge of naming these shades, these would have gone through with flying colors. They are, in my opinion, in line with the names they give all their shades. Colourpop Cosmetics makes great, inexpensive makeup, and I have zero qualms about continuing to shop the brand. Where else am I going to get a BOMB $5 eyebrow pencil that stays put on my oily face all day? Where?

I’m happy the brand did listened to the concerns of their consumers and took swift action to remedy the problem. There are, however, still calls out to boycott the brand which feels a bit misdirected.

What are your thoughts? Have we made much ado about nothing or  is there a legitimate issue a play?

Similar Posts

9 Comments

  1. I feel this was being overly sensitive actually. Though I like make up, I don’t wear a lot. I had never heard of Color Pop, and was quite impressed with what I saw, including the names for the shades of color.

    I’m very impressed the company took the time to recognize and adjust the names, even if I feel this is an over reaction.

    Where can I find Color Pop products?

  2. Stephanie Oparaugo says:

    This is very stupid! Whomever made this complaint is just a plain trouble maker…I don’t see the issue here but whatever!!!

  3. Do we really have nothing better to do than to look for racism in cosmetics? Some people just try to find controversy wherever they can.

  4. Yeah, there are brown people being gunned down in the streets of America and bombed to bits in the streets of Syria. If this is the thing you were most concerned about this week, you might need re-prioritize. Calm down guys. Have a glass of wine or something.

  5. Yes pretty offensive and not to mention tacky the darker the color the more negative the name. I totally see a problem with the names. The fact that cops are killing blacks in the streets like rats does not negate the fact that the name of these products are unacceptable.

  6. I have never purchased CP products and while I was impressed that they even had foundation colors for women of color, I did feel that they could have chosen better names. Yes there are a lot of turmoil in the world but you can’t really tell someone how they should feel about a specific subject…ijs.
    Also, while Dume is a place in Portugal, the urban dictionary definition is “The act of being stupid and not able to send a legible text message or electronic message by misspelling even the simplest words.” so can’t really say which definition CP was referring to!

    1. true…but since one of the other shades is Venice, I assumed they used Dume in the same manner they used Venice.

  7. Adeola Naomi says:

    I am not offended but I can understand those who are though.

  8. Very unflattering names indeed! I can’t believe there could possible be any cosmetic company that would name a product “Yikes”! No matter for what color it stands for is this the feeling you’d like your customers to get when buying and using it?! Unbelievable!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *